Education

Students deserve to be engaged and empowered to think critically, and the teachers who guide them should be respected and rewarded.

Teacher Shortage

Thousands of public school classrooms in Arizona are without a qualified teacher. And it is no wonder, Arizona ranks 49 in teacher pay. We need to pay teachers more and respect them as professionals who we trust with our future.

Keeping Schools Public

We have too often seen the political establishment prioritize profit over the needs of students. The increasing privatization of our education system is a prime example of this trend. Corrupt corporations now receive public dollars for the schools they run, and increasingly push out students who they do not want. This has led to the increasing segregation of our schools and undermines the concept of a universal and public education system.

Smaller Class Sizes

Our students need and deserve individualized attention if they are going to learn. In 2016, our overcrowded classrooms gave us one of the country’s highest student-to-teacher ratios. We need to respect the time of our students in the classroom and respect the profession of teaching by bringing class sizes down.

Teach More, Test Less

A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for students. For too long, we’ve been overtesting students and not providing them time for unique programs and hands-on learning. We need to encourage more STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) curriculum that fosters creative and critical thinking. We need shared goals like the Progress Meter for how we determine success, and we to hold schools accountable for how they do at teaching every student, which means rethinking our current system of teaching to the test.

Civil Rights

We must condemn the exclusion or targeting of persons based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Racial Justice

Arizona has failed to meet the needs of communities of color: we are over-policed, underpaid, and are expected to work twice as hard to succeed. The color of a person’s skin still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead and who gets left behind. We must face that reality and we must enact proactive policies to fix it.

LGBTQIA Rights

Thanks to SCOTUS’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015, LGBTQIA persons in the United States finally have the right to marry who they love, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. In Arizona, employers can still discriminate against their employees based on who they love or decide to marry, and previous attempts to expand workplace protections to LGBTQIA have failed. If we are truly to be a state that is “Open for Business,” then we must enact policies that ensure this openness applies to everyone.

Voting Rights

The Republican-led Legislature has chipped away at Arizonans’ voting rights while expanding protections for dirty money and increased corporate spending on elections. Our democracy is stronger when we protect the right to vote. Expanding access to the ballot will diminish corrupt corporations’ outsized influence on elections.

Housing

Access to a safe and warm home should be a right. Arizona must foster policies which provide a safety net to our most vulnerable, especially low-income families, veterans, people with a disability, and the elderly.

Criminal Justice

Arizona is 4th highest in the nation for mass incarceration and leads the US in locking up women. Our state’s leaders have thus far ignored this problem despite the many evidence-based solutions that have worked to reduce incarceration in neighboring states.

End Cash Bail

Arizona needs to end pre-trial detention by reserving it for only the most extreme cases. 7 out of 10 persons in Arizona jails at any given moment are too poor to bail themselves out. Yet none of these people have been convicted of crime but face stark collateral consequences such as job loss, eviction, or even losing custody of their children.

End Mass Incarceration

Arizona’s jails and prisons are filled with people whose only offense is drug-related. We must stop incarcerating people struggling with drug addiction and pass common-sense justice reforms such as legalizing marijuana possession and ending mandatory minimums.

End Life Sentencing for Children

Arizona is one of the few states that still sends kids away for life without the possibility of probation or parole. Our children deserve second chances and need a safe and loving environment to grow and learn from their mistakes, not to be caged.

End Private Prisons

There should not be a profit motive attached to imprisonment and Arizona’s prison infrastructure is crumbling while producing an abysmal recidivism rate of 2 to 1. Inhumane treatment of people behind bars must stop and we can fix it by investing in a true corrections system that seeks to rehabilitate over driving up incarceration rates.

Environment

Global warming is real. We must find ways to reduce our carbon footprint and hold accountable the polluters who place profits over the health of our community.

Water

Access to clean water is the climate justice fight of our lifetime. Arizona is experiencing a 20-year drought and lacks a sustainable plan for the future of our water. We need solutions now that prioritize the health of our community over the profit motives of developers and corrupt utilities who are depleting and poisoning our shared water supply.

Pollution

Lower-income and racially diverse neighborhoods are forced to live with poorer air quality while wealthier communities enjoy healthier standards. A mountain of research has shown that low-income households and people of color are disproportionately impacted by air pollution. In Arizona, children of color are exponentially more at risk for asthma and airborne related illness than their white counterparts.

Energy

Clean energy is common sense in Arizona. We have more sunshine than any other state in the nation, yet places like New Jersey have more solar energy thana we do. Embracing clean energy standards will also create good-paying clean energy jobs, which are already rising in other states that have decided to invest in clean energy. We must begin by making investments now in solar, wind, and hydropower.

Healthcare

Access to high-quality healthcare is a universal right.

Universal Healthcare

Offering Medicaid to all Arizonans makes sense. The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) is one of the best-run Medicaid programs in the nation. We should build on that success by allowing every Arizonan to afford to buy into the program.

Holding Big Pharma Accountable

Prices for prescription drugs have skyrocketed in recent years, and instead of supporting consumers, politicians have consistently sided with the corrupt and greedy corruptions of the pharmaceutical industry. It’s time to pursue policies that rein in costs, bolster safety standards, expand coverage for generic drugs, and hold drugmakers accountable for the harmful marketing practices that helped to create our current opioid addiction crisis.

Restoring Kids Care

Arizona’s Republican political establishment fought hard against the expansion of our State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (KidsCare). But we led the charge that pushed back against their empty rhetoric, resulting in the temporary restoration of funding for the program, making healthcare accessible for 30,000 Arizona’s children. We must do more to permanently restore long-term funding.

Immigration

Immigration is the backbone of this nation. We must honor our history as a nation of immigrants by supporting policies that keep families together, treat people with dignity, and provide an opportunity for citizenship to all that is free of unnecessary obstacles.

Abolish Ice

Keep Families Together. End Family Separations.

Repeal SB1070

SB1070 damaged our state and enabled the discriminatory and criminal practices of Joe Arpaio. It’s long past time to undo this mistake.

Clean Dream Act

When Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program, he put the lives of over 800,000 people in jeopardy. Every day that Congress doesn’t act brings us one day closer to a possibility of the deportation of nearly a million people who call the United States of America their only home.

Jobs & Economy

We can prioritize people over profits by creating policies that can end poverty once and for all.

Living Wage

Providing Arizona’s workforce with a livable wage will not only contribute the overall success of the local economy, it will result in an increased standard of living for all of us. When working families feel secure about their future they participate in the economy. Demand is what drives job growth, not giveaways to greedy corporations.

Economic Fairness

Arizonans are facing unprecedented rates of income and wealth inequality. Families are working harder than ever to earn less, while the profits from their work further enrich the top one percent. Arizona pays out nearly $14B in handouts to corporations every year, money from your pocket, and the result has only made our economy less prosperous.

Good-Paying Jobs

As technology continues to advance, so must our workforce. Investing in programs of study that will provide people of all ages with the technical education and work-based skills that employers are looking for will create a strong bridge to meaningful and lasting employment for all Arizonans.

Strong Safety Net

For years, Republicans have chipped away at important programs designed to lift people out of poverty. The help we give to those desperately in need of a break should not come with strings attached. We live in the richest country in the world and have the resources in hand to provide everyone with the safety and security they need to get back on their feet.

Women's Rights

Pro Choice

Women’s reproductive rights are constantly under attack. Arizona is one of the worst places in the nation to seek an abortion. We need to enact pro-choice measures to protect women’s right to choose.

Equal Pay and the ERA

Women deserve equal pay for equal work. Sexual discrimination in the workplace is real and Arizona is nowhere closer to solving this problem. We continue to fight hard each and every year for the passage of a resolution calling on Congress to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Universal Access to Contraception

Providing coverage for and universal access to contraception, such as long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) and traditional birth control pills, is key if we are ever going to afford women choice, equity, and dignity when it comes to their personal reproductive health.